Man, I really shouldn't gloat about the demise of another
Web magazine. I really shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. But
FUCK, I'm going to! Goodbye, Suck dot com! Patsy amateurs!
Clear the FLOOR, the man is gonna DANCE.

It's been a loooong time coming. I mean, a real long time. Suck.com has been on
the World Wide Squirrel for, what, like FIVE YEARS or something? What else has
stuck around that long? What other mammals are snuffling on the ground in this
late hour? Grapejam.com? TheSpot.com? Not too many of us left. Suck.com has
been hanging in there for a while, and they should be commended for their
sticktuitiveness.

BUT... today they shut their doors. I mean, you just gotta read their
pissed-off, bitter, unapologetically crank-case goodbye letter linked at the
end of this article. Suck.com and "The Sucksters" are going "on vacation." Back
again soon, I'm sure!

Haw haw haw! Yeah, sing me no GettingIt 2.0, Suckbuddies. You're outta here.
Face the facts and move on. Or, move on as much as you can. I mean, there's not
a big market for ass-puckered turtlenecks with Elvis Costello glasses in this
Bush economy, you may have noticed. Sure, some of you will get jobs freelancing
crabapple stories for Salon or Yahoo! Internet, some will salvage the remains
of the last paycheck they'll ever earn and go move back in with Mom and Dad in
Belmont. Some will begin a long, slow, meandering journey through shit-eating
publishing jobs into the crackhouse. But ONE thing I will guarandamnfuckingtee
for sure: there's not going to be another suck.com. Ever, never, ever.

And, really, it's no wonder. Since its inception, Suck.com has been a locus of
shitty swirling bile masquerading as cosmopolitan hipness. Suck's attitude is
leftover meta-cynicism from 80s-era "Late Night with David Letterman," all
dressed up in the shiny metallic costumes of early 90s
virtual-reality-and-mushrooms cyberculture. Empty, fey wordplay and wide-angle
piss-spraying do not a valuable counterculture make, my friends. Always
attacking, never defending, neither running with the foxes nor hunting with the
hounds but throwing beer bottles from the sidelines at both packs.

Suck is like fat little know-it-all Velma, except maybe a couple of mojitos
over her limit, telling everyone how fake and stupid they are, and waggling her
finger, and making bad ass jokes, and just getting on your nerves. Daphne, man,
you'd just love it if she did that. Beautiful people can get away with being
crass. But ugly people get shown the door, and they should count themselves
lucky if they don't get smacked backhand real hard before. Suck dot com, you
are ugly people.

Let me just lay down the FACTS for any readers of PDJ who may be wondering if
perhaps Suck.com is a harbinger of doom for all Web journalistas, and maybe
EVERYTHING on the Innurnet is going to Fucktown in a shitbasket. The answer is
NO. Despite what they may think, Suck.com was ALWAYS a creature of the sick,
blue-button-down-and-Dockers New Media world that they loved to ridicule so
badly -- a little corporate loss-leader lapdog that continually bit its owners
and shat on the Chippendales. It doesn't matter how much you call yourself a
"Web zine" (ha!) or snigger at push technology and Must See TV, because when
the market is down, Master is gonna put you in a Hefty bag and throw you out by
the side of some country road. At night, when the feral curs come to chew
through the plastic, think they're freeing you so you can be their little buddy
and join the gang? Think again, Alpo. I mean, FIFI.

Buy the ticket, take the ride. Run with the RATS, get RABIES and DIE. That's
the law of the world, and you knew it when you started the game. Might as well
make a snarling little feint with your last remaining paw before choking on
your own bloody foam, eh? Learn nothing, do nothing, gain nothing.

It's not entirely hopeless for "The Sucksters," of course. Hell, man, there's a
big Web out there, plus Freenet,
plus who knows what the hell else. Some of the people writing for Suck were
actually pretty OK decent writers, if they'd get the fuck over themselves and
maybe get outside and get some fresh air. Start from the GROUND UP, instead of
getting the casting-couch job in Multimedia Gulch, and maybe some of them could
even learn the difference between sullen teenage bird-flipping ("I HATE you, Mom
and Dad!") and real gutsy writing. Who knows? Weirder things have happened.

"hey, FAT BOYS! Ha ha ha! You need to get HUNGRY again.
Lean and cruel, with one ear to the ground at all times, like a Real Pigdog
Journalist. Try rubbing down with gasoline and doing 200 pushups and 200
pullups twice a day. Get ANGRY! Drink straight Everclear! Learn a little
something about JOURNALISM and maybe someday we'll let you be our COPY BOYS.
Muahahahaha!"

Anyways, check the letter, bid Suck.com and fond adieu, and go out and read you
some REAL Web zines. It's like the song says: the gangs of LA will never die --
just multiply. OK, that's got nothing to do with Web zines, but shitfire, it
sure sounds scary, eh? What I mean to say is: we got your content right here,
Bubba. Nobody's taking out THIS Webbertertainment spectacular any time soon.